by Tom Clancy
If he was going to get in that warehouse, it was now or never.
He dashed across the street in a kind of a run-limp, every muscle in his body screaming, his brain bobbling against his skull with every thudding step.
Jack smiled. It suddenly occurred to him that this easy, white-side vacation Gerry sent him on just might wind up killing him.
—
Yong and Meili were dressed now, and staring at the computer screen, watching Jack’s red tracking dot advance toward the warehouse.
“I told you he was persistent,” Yong said.
Meili was on her cell phone.
“He’s on the way.”
49
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
Rhodes paced the floor of his fourth-floor office, ignoring the magnificent view.
Like his two defense-industry rivals Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, Marin Aerospace was located in Fairfax County, Virginia. It wasn’t a convenient location for manufacturing and it didn’t offer any particular economic or comparative advantages except for one: The small Virginia county in the northernmost reaches of the state sat just across the border from Washington, D.C.
As with every other major corporation in the United States, the most important business decisions Marin Aerospace made occurred in the halls of Congress. Access to legislators was more valuable than raw materials, cash, or credit. Legislative access—crony capitalism—was how Marin Aerospace acquired most of its government contracts, blunted potentially harmful regulations, tempered investigations into cost overruns, and otherwise kept the cash cow flowing with taxpayer-subsidized milk. Rhodes didn’t like the way the game was played—most of his C-suite friends didn’t, either—but he didn’t invent the rules; he mastered them.
But today was a different kind of headache.
The kind that could get him killed.
Or worse.
He could wind up broke.
Rhodes had a lot of personal money riding on this operation. So would Zvezdev. But he wasn’t a fool. He’d crossed Zvezdev once before. “All in the past. Time to make money!” he’d promised. But the wily Bulgarian was still a Slav, and Slavs had long memories—and even longer knives. He didn’t dare cross him again.
Rhodes stared at the cell phone on his desk, willing it to ring. What was the delay? He was certain that Paul Brown would’ve already installed the USB drive he’d given him. Did he just forget to call?
Idiot.
Against his better judgment, Rhodes snatched up the phone and hit the only speed-dial number programmed into it.
—
Paul slept with his head in a puddle of his own drool on the kitchen table until his cell phone rang. He rubbed his face and pulled his glasses back on. He stared uneasily at the digital readout. He nearly knocked the empty whiskey bottle off the table as he picked up the phone.
“Weston?”
“What the hell’s the delay?”
Paul winced. An old wound from a long time ago. The churlish, condescending Weston Rhodes he knew in Sofia was suddenly on the other end of the line. He fumbled for his words, trying to gather his wits.
“Uh, the ‘tea is brewing,’ but I haven’t had time—”
“Oh, forget the tea! We’re not doing that now. Just tell me why you haven’t installed that damn drive yet.”
“The drive?”
“Yes! The goddamn drive I gave you!”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. Uh, there’s a problem with Dalfan security—”
“A security problem? I sent you, Paul, because you’re a problem solver.”
“And I think I’ve solved it.”
“Good!”
“But I still need time. It should be done within the next twelve hours.”
“You only have twenty-four. You do understand that, right? Midnight, local. Your time, Paul. Not mine.”
Paul thought of Carmen. He wanted to cry again, but didn’t. “Yes, Senator. I understand. I’m doing the best I can.”
“You’re cutting it awfully close.”
“I won’t fail you.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Senator?”
“Paul, I apologize for losing my temper. You just have no idea about the pressure I’m under. You know how unreasonable those bureaucrats at Langley can be. They’re breathing down my neck.”
“I understand. And trust me, it will be taken care of today.”
“Without fail?”
“Without fail.”
“I knew I could count on you. And thanks again, Paul. You’re doing a helluva service for your country.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, and be sure to tell Jack hello for me.” Rhodes clicked off.
Paul shut his phone. Weston Rhodes was still a horse’s ass, but it was his country that needed him now. Paul put a beefy hand to his throbbing head.
My country might have to wait a few more minutes.
Paul used his arms to lift his unsteady frame from the chair, heading for bed. He limped up the stairs, leaning heavily on the handrail until he reached the landing. He shuffled past Jack’s bedroom. The lights were off, the door ajar. He pushed it open a little more. The bed was still made.
Paul frowned. He wondered if Jack was with Lian, having sex. They seemed close. But that wasn’t good, at least from an auditing perspective.
50
SINGAPORE
Jack approached the front of the north-facing warehouse. Two glass doors were locked and secured. A red flashing light told him they were alarmed. No one appeared to be inside, but he wasn’t prepared to try to defeat an electronic alarm system. He decided to check out the rest of the steel building. Like the other warehouse and storage facility, the property butted up against the bay for loading onto a vessel and no doubt had rear doors for access.
Jack double-checked to make sure he wasn’t being watched and stayed out of the sight lines of any security cameras he saw, pulling the bill of his Ravens ball cap over his eyes to further hide his identity. He made his way along the west side of the building, stopping at a steel door. It was padlocked. There wasn’t a window to look into. He pressed forward.
The full moon was covered by high storm clouds. He passed as quietly as he could along the rest of the seventy feet of steel wall, guided by the dim light of a sodium lamp high overhead. At least the wall gave him shelter from the windblown rain coming out of the east. When he reached the back, he squatted low with a grimace and looked around the corner. Rain pelted the bill of his cap.
A square of light beamed out of an open loading-dock door halfway down the platform. There weren’t any trucks or vehicles in the bays or any movement in or out of the open doorway.
But over the din of the pouring rain he heard voices. Talking, laughing.
In Chinese.
He approached the open bay, staying close to the shut loading-dock doors and careful not to bump into them. He knew they’d rattle if he did. When he reached the corner of the open bay door, he peered around the corner.
Three men, Chinese, sat at a folding card table, talking in normal voices and playing a game with plastic tiles. Dominoes, maybe, Jack told himself. More likely mah-jongg—hugely popular in Asia.
One of them, the oldest—with short-cropped silver hair and broad, sloping shoulders—puffed on a thick cigar wedged in his square jaw. The air was clouded with blue smoke.
The table was located in front of a line of pallets, each stacked six feet high with boxes of DVD players wrapped in thick cellophane. One of the pallets had been torn open, and several of the boxes were stacked on the floor. Each box was big enough to hold several DVD players. One of them had been opened, and a unit removed from its packaging and tossed on the floor. Next to them, an electric lift table extended halfway up.
What’s going on here? Jack rubbed h
is face, frustrated. It didn’t make any sense. Had he gotten the address wrong? Or was this just a goat rope?
Damn it.
He decided to head back home to regroup. He’d turned to leave when he heard a shout.
“Hey! Hey!”
Jack saw Cigar Man smiling and waving him over, his face shrouded in tendrils of smoke. The other two men turned around. They were younger—one was in his thirties, the other about Jack’s age. They smiled, too.
Cigar Man shouted something to Jack in Chinese, then turned back to the card table, studying the tiles in front of him. Probably something along the lines of Join us in the game.
Jack felt the weight of the crescent wrench tucked at his waist. He was glad he hadn’t pulled it out like a weapon. If he turned and ran, these guys might call the cops, mistaking him for a thief. Better to come on in and play dumb.
Jack stepped out of the storm and into the warehouse, shaking off the rain from his jacket onto the concrete floor as one of the men shouted, “Mah-jongg!” Jack glanced up. The thirty-something guy punched his fists in the air in victory as the older man laughed and the younger one cursed.
Jack approached the table and saw the familiar tiles. He’d had a Taiwanese girlfriend in college who’d taught him the game—along with a few other things. The Cigar Man blew another plume of smoke as he and the others swiftly turned the tiles facedown. Fond memories of midnight mah-jongg games in the dorm flooded his mind. He wasn’t very good at it, but it was a lot of fun, especially when he was drinking PBRs. He’d played the game a hundred times if he played it once.
The three men laid their hands on the overturned tiles and mixed them up together, a communal act of security. The thirty-something shot Jack a quick glance and a faint smile. He wondered if he was the ace in the group.
Group?
Mah-jongg takes four players—
Jack spun right on his heel and ducked, sensing more than seeing the bat swing past his left ear. He didn’t move fast enough. The heavy lumber smashed a glancing blow just below his shoulder, bouncing off his upper arm and crashing into the flimsy card table, scattering tiles in every direction. Cigar Man had already leaped to his feet and receded, while the two others pulled knives and jumped aside.
Jack pulled the wrench out of his belt as he spun on his heel, ignoring the bruising bat blow, and whipped the steel around in the long reach of his arm like he was throwing a Frisbee. The wrench broke the smaller man’s neck just as he was lifting the bat for another strike. Jack stepped past the falling corpse and the bat clattering on the floor as he spun through the momentum of his swing.
Against the three other men he had almost no chance of winning, even if he had already dispatched their friend. His only chance was speed—and sheer audacity. In the time it took to spin and strike the bat man, the twenty-something was charging with a long blade, lunging forward like a fencer, driving the point of the knife straight into Jack’s gut.
—
It happened so fast Jack didn’t have time for déjà vu—he just had time to lift the wrench above his head and smash it down on the man’s confused face, caving in his skull right between the eyes. Blood gushed hot on Jack’s hand as the sharp end of the extended wrench jaw sank into the bone.
Behind him, Jack heard heavy steps charging toward him. Without looking, he thrust his elbow back as hard as he could, aiming it shoulder high. His aim was perfect. The hardest bone in Jack’s body cracked into the soft cartilage of the lunging man’s nose. The Chinese man screamed as his body flung backward, feet high and flopping, like a man running full speed into a clothesline. His skull hit the concrete with a sickening thud.
Jack turned to face Cigar Man, smiling and puffing, his broad back against a pallet. He wrapped his thick fingers around the cigar stub, took one last puff, and flung it aside. In the same instant he reached behind his shirt and pulled out a razor-clawed karambit.
Of course.
Jack shuddered at the sight of it. Amador had shown him all too clearly what that blade was capable of in the hands of a man who knew how to use it. Cigar’s confidence with the weapon was obvious.
Jack spun into his fighting stance, desperately trying to remember what Amador had taught him— Stupid! He told himself. If it isn’t in your muscle memory now, don’t even try. John Clark had taught him that in real close-quarters combat, there’s no time for thinking—only instinct, drilled into him by hours and hours of practice. Jack had that in spades. He glanced at the karambit again, trying to shut his brain off.
At least he has only one knife, he thought.
Until Cigar Man pulled out another.
Fuck. Me.
He heard Amador’s voice in his head. When faced by a man who knows how to use two knives—RUN LIKE HELL!
But Jack couldn’t run.
He still had a job to do.
Cigar Man grinned, sensing an easy kill, even if the American was five inches taller. The man slid forward on his feet, gliding like a dancer.
Jack backed up, feeling the ground with his boots, hoping not to trip over one of the three bodies he’d put on the floor—
Too late.
Jack began to tumble backward on the corpse of the first man, and Cigar saw his chance, lowering his blades and charging.
But Jack saw his chance, too, as he regained his balance. He raised the wrench behind his ear and threw it as hard as he could. The heavy chunk of steel crashed into Cigar’s chest. He oomphed a blast of smoky air, stunned, dropping his knives. Before the blades hit the ground, Jack was on him, wrapping his arms around the man’s throat. He didn’t want to kill this one—he needed answers. But the old fighter wasn’t finished. He blasted his two forearms up and between Jack’s, breaking his grip. Then Cigar Man smashed his forehead forward, catching Jack on the chin.
The head butt felt like a gunshot against Jack’s jaw, and white stars exploded in his eyes. In the hyper slo-mo of his adrenaline rush, Jack heard his wrench clatter on the concrete, and even smelled the cigar stink on the man’s breath.
Cigar Man’s head butt missed its mark. Jack was staggered, yet still in the fight.
The man lunged at him now, hands extended, reaching for Jack’s throat. But Jack seized Cigar Man’s wrists and dropped, pulling the man’s hands against his chest and rolling onto his own back, shoving his boots into the man’s crotch and thrusting his legs straight up, catapulting the man up and over until Jack let go. The weight of both their bodies and the centrifugal force launched the smaller man through the air, smashing him against the sharp steel corner of the electric lift table, snapping his spine.
Jack leaped to his feet. The first thing he did was check his body armor—the three-hundred-page Dalfan product catalog he had secured with duct tape inside his waistband. The blade that struck his gut penetrated a good half-inch. He thought about pulling out the paper armor but changed his mind.
The night wasn’t over yet.
Jack checked Cigar Man’s pulse, but his lifeless eyes were confirmation enough. Jack cursed. How could he find out who these jerkwads were?
He rifled through the pockets of all four men quickly, keeping his head on a swivel and his ears sharp to make sure he wouldn’t get ambushed again. The search yielded nothing, not even pocket litter. More proof they were pros.
Jack’s only recourse was to snap photos of each of them with his iPhone, then grab fingerprints, using a military-grade phone app that Gavin had installed on every Campus smartphone. “Just in case,” he’d said at the time.
Jack scanned the area again. Still safe. He knew pros wouldn’t leave behind what he was looking for, but he needed to take an extra few minutes to check out what he could. He felt the pressure of the clock. No way these guys were working alone; their buddies could be just outside the door. Worse, the cops might show up. How would he explain four dead bodies?
Jack wasn’t a s
ociopath, but he didn’t feel bad about killing men who tried to kill him without provocation. That might not matter to the Singapore justice system, and he had little interest in finding out.
Jack picked the bloody crescent wrench up off the floor and wiped it on the shirt of the youngest killer, then pocketed it. No point in leaving evidence behind. He thought about trying to hide the bodies or even burning the place down to cover his tracks. He glanced up at the rafters and saw only two cameras pointing in his direction, both disabled. Yeah, they were pros, all right, and not any more interested in leaving evidence behind than he was.
“Thanks for the assist, assholes.”
No point in adding arson and evidence tampering to any future charges. He told himself that, more than likely, whoever sent these guys were more interested in recovering their bodies than he was. Four dead men would lead to a lot of questions, some of which would lead back to their handlers.
Jack quickly inspected a couple DVD player boxes on the open pallet but didn’t find anything other than DVD players. He could take the time to break into the front offices or make a more thorough inspection, but his gut told him he’d come up empty. It was safer and probably more useful to just get the hell out and back home, and send the photos and fingerprints to Gavin.
He checked the exit one last time to make sure he wasn’t being followed, then crossed over to the east side of the building, opposite the way he came in, and put his crashed van a few hundred yards behind him as fast as he could with his run-limp before he activated his Uber app.
51
Jack spotted a nearly full dumpster on a construction site and hobbled over to it. He climbed up onto it and found what he was looking for—a rag and an empty cardboard box. He used the rag to wipe the blood off his hand and tossed the rag into the box, folded up the lid, and stuffed the box under a piece of gypsum board. Jack went to the other side of the dumpster and shoved the wrench into a length of PVC pipe, then stuck a piece of insulation in after it and buried it under some trash, along with the Dalfan catalog. In a perfect world he would have destroyed the evidence that could put him in jail for life—or worse—but he was out of time and his options were few.
